“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and
statistics.” – Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881, British Prime Minister, Lawyer, Author)
Statistics are often distorted to give a misleading impression. Some people (and government agencies) use bogus statistics to “prove” a theory, support an opinion or excuse a policy. Darrell Huff wrote a book called How to Lie with Statistics that demonstrated how easily statistics can be used to deceive rather then inform. Examples in Huff’s book include using samples with the built-in bias, unqualified averages, calculated omissions and making selective comparisons.
Nearly 100% of you fine readers are interested in Passive Income Ideas and about 75% of you fine readers are Americans. However, Americans are only a small part of the global population. Therefore we can chart that Americans are more interested in Passive Income Ideas then residents of other countries since those people don’t come to Innovative Passive Income looking for information on passive income ideas.
While backed up by statistics, my conclusions are 94.7% likely to be bogus (as is the 94.7% number I just made up on the spot).
So can we believe the US Unemployment Statistics? I submit that they are about as accurate as the 94.7% estimate I just quoted.
How bad is unemployment really though? A lot worse then the government wants us to think. Ever heard of “Consumer Confidence”, the all important metric of the economic recovery? Well there would be a lot less consumer confidence if the consumers understood the real unemployment numbers. This video explains how the US Government is fudging the numbers.
Now here is a graphical representation using the official unemployment stats. The darker counties have higher unemployment. (there seem to be benefits to living in farming areas).
With official (bogus) unemployment rates at 10% in the US, and the real unemployment rate far higher, now is definitely not a good time to rely solely on job based income. It is clearly a good time to start some passive income streams to supplement or replace job income. Join me in the quest.
Resources:
If you want a technical explanation from the BLS see here
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Perhaps one of the reasons why you get 75% of visitors from the US is because many passive income opportunities are US-based. Some places won’t even take non-Americans. Then you have other people that might participate in passive-income opportunities that don’t speak English.
Just another way that statistics can be deceiving ;-).
Well yes, plus a lot of my traffic comes from forums that are US focused. This site is picking up more Indian (and other Asian) traffic now that I’ve done some guest posting in a blog that is India based.
Yeah, I worked preparing financial reports for a couple years and was amazed. This isn’t a new thing, either, this is how unemployment has been figured for many years. It seems a bit ridiculous when you have “unemployment numbers” and then you still have to have “real unemployment estimated” numbers. Agree on the passive income. It helped carry me through some lean months.
Howdy, i read your blog occasionally and i personal a similar one and i had been just wondering should you get lots of spam comments? If so how do you avoid it, any plugin or anything you are able to advise? I get so much lately it’s driving me mad so any assistance is very much appreciated.
I get lots of spam… is your comment spam?
I don’t usually respond to posts but may in this case. Wow :)